This is the first installment in the “Revolution Mondays” series, where I will be doing deep dives on past revolutions and their multiple characteristics. If you like this series and everything else on this blog, please leave a comment and subscribe below. It’s what keeps this going as a full time job. Also become a patron by visiting my Patreon at patreon.com/ForwardBlog
Background - Ancien Regime Fiscal Crisis to Estates-General of 1789 and the Storming of the Bastille
I wanted to start this series out of a general interest in revolutions and revolutionary political theorists. What better revolution to start with than the first one in the modern world? It’s the revolution that abolished a monarchy (the first of its kind), abolished the feudalist economic system in much of western Europe and destroyed the landholding power of the clergy. It kickstarted ten incredible years of revolutionary activity both through violent maneuvers and legislative action that transformed Europe forever and inspired millions of future generations to change their material conditions for the better. It created a future for liberal democracies to flourish out of the ruins of monarchism. The French Revolution not only ended the Ancien Regime but it democratized a body politic and created real democratic factions based off of actual philosophies by many different political theorists, lawyers, noblemen and politicians. Did it bring about a more egalitarian lifestyle for the lower French classes, namely landless peasants who worked the fields under a Feudalist system of backwardness and oppression? Yes. Did it overturn the class system entirely and abolish the French aristocracy and bourgeoisie capital-owning class? Not quite. Within that framework, there are areas I would like to focus on for this piece. Not so much as the timeline of the revolution but it’s characteristics, political clubs involved and the various de facto governments and assemblies that existed from the first debates of the Estates-General in 1789, through the Storming of the Bastille, passing the Reign of Terror and into 1794. Men like Rousseau, Maximilien Robespierre and Antoine Barnave became household figures for future generations to study and idolize. They all contributed in different ways and attempted to chart many different paths for the newly liberated French people. They may be some of the more well-known figures, but the revolution prospered through an amazing influx of civic engagement, the likes of which the world had never seen before. This trumps anything one individual could theorize or accomplish in their lifetimes.
Just as in most revolutions that have happened throughout history, the long arc of an empire often ends in a financial crisis that erupts suddenly or trickles in over time. For the Ancien Regime, this happened over a span of about 20 years. In 1774, King Louis XVI took the throne in the midst of a budget crisis where the state was nearing bankruptcy. This was largely a factor of costly involvement in both the Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution. These were two imperialistic projects that the Ancien Regime embarked on in order to spread influence and open up new markets. As in a lot of decaying empires, the regressive tax system that existed was also a factor, placing large burdens on the lower classes. France’s stratified but still existing nobility, had all kinds of tax exemptions and by the late 1770’s the French citizens were beginning to catch on to how the throne was stealing from their labor. The finance minister (one of 3 that would be eventually dismissed by King Louis XVI), knew that the Estates-General (the legislative body under the Ancien Regime), needed to pass some sort of land tax that would do the basic function of redistribution. This was unheard of at the time and the nobility and clergy fought it every step of the way. If this legislative body seemed stacked against the lower classes, it’s because it was. The estates system during the Ancien Regime was fundamentally inegalitarian. The first estate consisted of the king, queen and clergy, the second estate was the nobles and the third estate was the peasants and bourgeoisie. The nobility was mainly lords who were wealthy landowning businessmen, the clergy were mainly Catholic priests and other religious officials who also owned land and the third estate consisted of the peasants, landless serfs and some artisans. In the Estates-General assembly of 1789, elections were held for the first time. The requirements to participate in this assembly were not too strict. You had to be a French-born male, at least 25 years old and current on your taxes. There was really strong turnout and about 1200 delegates were produced. This included 303 clergy (First Estate along with the King and Queen), 291 nobles and 610 members of the Third Estate. This uneven balance worried the nobility but more importantly the clergy. The clergy during the Ancien Regime did actually have a decreasing population, mainly due to the Enlightenment and a growing apathy amongst the public to engage with the church while they wallowed in poverty. However by 1789, the church still owned about 10% of the land and collected tithes (taxes) on peasants. Books of grievances were created by members in the Third Estate and liberal pamphlets were circulated widely. There was questions as to who made up the Third Estate exactly. Liberal clergymen believed that this group constituted the majority and needed to be heard. They continued to meet in what became known as “the commons” (French: “The Commune”) and debate flourished from there on out. This was important by the time the National Assembly came around. It was the logical process by which the Third Estate would be heard in an assembly of nobles and clergy. By July 1789, King Louis XVI used all kinds of excuses to keep the Third Estate from meeting in the National Assembly. He even said carpenters need to be called in to renovate the royal hall and claimed that the assembly would “be delayed” due to this development. These last-ditch efforts of subversion by the king forced members of the Third Estate to meet at a tennis court outside Versailles where they would swear the famous “Tennis Court Oath”, under which they agreed not to separate from the assembly until they had given the French citizens a constitution of rights. The king then ordered the military to mobilize outside of Paris and Versailles and he now felt the pressure bubbling up from under the surface.
Later that month, on July 14, 1789, the infamous Storming of the Bastille took place and changed the Assembly’s objectives and the immediate goals of the Third Estate. Now violence was on the plate. The armory, prison and fortress was a symbol of the monarchy’s absolute power, right in the heart of Paris. It became the flashpoint of the revolution and created unstoppable revolutionary zeal from that moment forward. There were only a few prisoners, but large caches of weapons. King Louis XVI tried to send in Marquis de Lafayette and his National Guard to put down the attack but it was too late. The king backed off and reassessed his options. Later in August, as a result of the increased violence and political pressure, feudalism was abolished by the assembly. It ended personal serfdom, created a court for remittances and gave exclusive hunting rights to nobility. The 10% tithe for the church was also abolished, thus beginning the steady decline of their landholding power. The revolution was moving forward and would result in the gruesome, infamous public execution of King Louis XVI in 1793.
The Jacobins Take Power
Out of this revolutionary fervor and the activities of the Estates-General from May 1789-August 1789, came the birth of the most influential French political club, The Jacobin Club, also known as “The Society of the Friends of the Constitution.” This was undoubtedly the most radical of the political clubs that formed during the revolution. During the dark years of the Ancien Regime from about 1680-1750, political gatherings, clubs, pamphlets of any kind was banned. You would be executed by guillotine as a result of these subversive activities. The club was formed by anti-royalist deputies from Brittany and it grew into a nationwide Republican movement in less than a year. Estimates of their membership ranged from about 300,000 to 500,000 at its height in 1793. It was a heterogenous club that contained two distinct factions, the Girondins and the Montagnards (the Mountain). The ideological divide between these two factions would factor prominently in the following years after the victories of the Estates-General in 1789 and up through the execution of King Louis XVI in 1793. The leaders of each faction would be just as divided, not just in terms of their class status but their ideologies. Maximilien Robespierre led the Montagnards faction and Jacques Pierre Brissot led the Girondists. Robespierre was the more radical, left-leaning revolutionary who advocated for universal suffrage, widespread education, the separation of church and state and a progressive tax system. He represented mostly the poorer classes and the landless peasants. He was a lawyer, best known for his good oratory skills and constant pushing for increased Republicanism. Brissot was more left-center on the French “left-right” scale and advocated for lesser landowners, nobility and the bourgeoisie. A main difference between the two factions was the Girondists supporting a free market, which the Montagnards did not agree with. Robespierre believed that a “free market” was not indeed free unless there was mechanisms in place to redistribute wealth. These differences were some of the earliest known debates on how to properly form a capitalist economic system (little did they know at the time.)
Barnave, a skilled orator, politician and representative of the Montagnards faction, formally constituted this society of Jacobins in January of 1790. He wrote policy and even debated a few members that day in January. They proceeded to draw up rules and defined objectives. Both Girondists and the Montagnards agreed on these. They were (1)to discuss in advance the questions to be decided by the General Assembly, (2)to work for the establishment in order to strengthen the Constitution and (3)to correspond with other societies of the same kind which should be formed in the realm. The debates of 1790 were full of fervor from both sides. Other political clubs joined in King Louis XVI could no longer keep track of all the clubs popping up throughout Paris and Versailles (the two seats of power). However, the polarization between the Girondists and the Montagnards reached an all time high by 1791 and a new course was drawn. Late in 1791, some Jacobins led by Brissot pushed for war with Austria and Prussia; two mainly smaller nation states that encompassed much of the German Rhine. This was not wise, not only because of the ongoing revolution that had yet to unseat the king, but France was in a terrible financial state still from the two previous wars mentioned earlier. Robespierre was adamantly against war and he was angry enough to cast the Girondists in a bad light and call them the "faction from Gironde." Such a fundamental disagreement was going to be hard to overcome and eventually split them up for good. By 1792, the monarchy fell, pushing the Ancien Regime into the dustbin of history and welcoming in the National Convention of 1792-93. Robespierre and his associates would feature prominently in this new assembly and take the highest seats in the session room, which were on the left side. This established the left-right political spectrum that the world uses to this day. It was a momentous occasion in which a real democratic body convened with clearly ideological lines on this new left-right spectrum. Historians estimate that there was close to an equal amount of Montagnards as there were Girondists, which makes sense when you consider that there was no official membership, just an inter-club ideological divide. We see this dynamic today if you were to go to any local club such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) or local Rotary Clubs.
By 1793, the friction between the two sides was heating up. Marat, Robespierre, Danton and Fouche were all prominent Montagnards who by this time had consolidated power. They were essentially the de-facto government since there was power vacuum that needed to be filled. While the National Assembly continued to delegate, the factions within the Jacobin Club continued to fight, thus leading to a civil war. At this time up to 60 revolts took place across France, 33 of which were in Paris. These were seen as federalist in nature (which isn’t true); they were Republican in nature and often led by the Montagnards. While the French First Republic was officially created at this time, the period from 1793-94 was full of political violence and counter-revolutionary measures led by Girondists and monarchists. Political oppression through jailing and torture was not uncommon. This time-period would welcome in the Reign of Terror. Most historians disagree about when the Reign of Terror actually took place. Most agree that it was between the fall of the monarchy and establishment of the French First Republic in 1792, to the execution of Robespierre in July of 1794. After that a new period began and later became known as the Thermidorian Reaction. This Reign of Terror consisted of a series of public executions, massacres, anti-clerical sentiment and accusations of treason from powerful officials like Robespierre. Much of the political violence was due to new-age Enlightenment thought that sought to challenge the legal and moral foundations of French society and emphasized the importance of rational thinking. The philosopher and political theorist, Rousseau, argued in his magnum opus, Social Contract, that each person was born with rights and should come together to form a government either through voting or a coalition of factions in a representative government. Rousseau understands the limits of his ideology since those “factions” are often divided along class interest and thus need to be negotiated with at all costs or else violence would take place. Rousseau advocated for the general will of the people and supported the slogan “Liberte, egalite, fraternite.” While many view this Reign of Terror as a personal political project of Robespierre, that is simply not the case. Threats of foreign invasion (from Austria and Prussia mainly), popular pressure from below and religious upheaval amongst the masses led to this period of violence. Robespierre certainly sentenced men to death for treason however it is debatable as to how much power the Jacobins and likewise the Montagnards had in what was at the time, a de-centralized government. The Committee of Public Safety was set up in 1793 and became the de-facto wartime government of France. During this, 300,000 people were executed up until the execution of Robespierre and the Thermidorian Reaction. It was incredible levels of violence, largely led by Jacobin revolutionaries and anti-clerical zealots. After the lawyer and fellow Montagnard, Jean-Paul Marat was executed, more political reprisals came in the form of public executions. It was a terrible spiral of violence, some of which Robespierre regretted overseeing personally. Robespierre felt that he was being put in a tough situation, since governing was going to be hard in war time and with a popular coalition that was being besieged by royalist and center-right forces.
The Thermidorian Reaction Ousts Robespierre and the Montagnards
The Thermidorian Reaction is named after the month that the coup took place, ousting the ousting the National Convention’s rule of France. It marked the end of the Reign of Terror and the de-centralization of powers from the Committee for Public Safety. From September 1793 to July 1794, Robespierre sat on the Committee for Public Safety and the committee’s power changed dramatically by giving him more power. The Law of the Suspects was an anti-treason law that could result in hanging (similar to the Logan Act in America). While power was de-centralized, it was clear that Robespierre and the Jacobins were the club in power. Division within the revolutionary government was rife and thus two factions rose in opposition to Robespierre and his executive branch. They were the left-wing ultra revolutionaries known as Hebertists, who gathered around Jacques Hebert and the Cordeliers Club, made up of a loose faction of revolutionaries from the south of France. These clubs advocated for different policies but were united against the National Convention. They represented mainly nobility and small landowners who now had no labor force to meet crop yield expectations. These factors would help lead to a “Thermidorian victory” where the Reign of Terror would come to an end, the “extremists” (mainly Montagnards) were executed and the fall of the Montagnards as a political force within the Jacobin club. By 1794 it became increasingly clear that Robespierre’s goal of creating a united and indivisible France, equality before the law, the abolition of slavery, abolishing prerogatives and promoting direct elections was going to fall well short of his own expectations. He would be arrested on July 28 along with five other deputies. The Commune (the Paris provisional government) ordered the National Guard to close the gates to the National Assembly and not let in any other Montagnards. Robespierre was then taken to the Hotel de Ville and the gendarme tried to gather Robespierre to take him and his deputies to another location but Le Bas (another deputy) handed a gun to Robespierre then shot himself. Robespierre then attempted suicide by shooting himself in the mouth, however one of the gendarmes interfered and he shot only a section of his jaw.
He would then be taken to the antechamber of the Committee of General Security where he laid down almost all night in excruciating pain. On the afternoon of 10 Thermidor (July 28), the Revolutionary Tribunal of judges condemned Robespierre to death. While Robespierre stepped up to guillotine, he apparently had no shame as the executioner Charles-Henri Sanson (also King Louis XVI’s executioner), tore off Robespierre’s bandage from his jaw and then lowered the blade, killing him instantly. It was a sharp signifier of a brutal end to Jacobin rule and the Montagnards as a political faction. In fact, later that year in November of 1794, the club would become extinct as most of its members were either jailed, executed or became political dissidents in neighboring countries seeking some of the first forms of political asylum.
Cultural and Political Influence of the Jacobin Club During the Most Promising Years of the Revolution
There’s no question that the early years of the revolution saw the most death and outright political violence. However, much of that is a natural cause of revolutionary fervor and increased political participation, especially those that overturn a monarchy or a long-reigning empire. It took 10 years for the First French Republic to establish a new economic system (with loss noblemen and clergy owning land), establish a constituent assembly without turmoil and violence and to bring any semblance of peace to the people. Robespierre’s Jacobin movement revolved around the creation of the Citizen. Rousseau comments on this notion in Social Contract when he states “Citizenship is the expression of a sublime reciprocity between individual and general will.” Once these two are in concert with each other, Rousseau argues that they could simultaneously embrace the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The emphasis here being that the French peasants and lower classes that made up the majority of the citizenry had no rights enshrined and were treated as just human capital; who’s sole purpose was to be exploited to the betterment of the state (monarchy - Ancien Regime). The Jacobins under Robespierre’s guidance saw themselves as constitutionalists and dedicated servants to Article II which states the principle of “preservation of the natural rights of liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.” They liked the Constitution because it reassured the protection personal freedom and social progress within French society. This was a clear objective of the revolution since even the most prominent lawyers and politicians of the time had never seen anything but a monarchy; and one that functioned for the last one hundred years or so as a monarchy in steady decline. There’s clearly no doubt that the Jacobins had the majority and mass of the populace. Their radical ideas inspired patriotism and led them to be able to form a constituent assembly and coalition government. The club made sure to stake out a position as far left as possible so they would not have to engage in class conflict. The abrogation of feudal privileges was the first such position and it marked a flashpoint for the club and their influence throughout France. They were neither a royalist Versailles club nor a nobility club chock full of lawyers from Paris. They were a truly multi-class, grassroots movement that advocated for more Republican policies to be written into the Constitution. They briefly ran a divided government but one that showed promise, despite the Reign of Terror that ensued.
The End of the Revolution and What Came Next
Women’s marches, multiple violent coups and various governing assemblies continued throughout the next five years after Robespierre’s execution and the fall of the Jacobin Club. The First Republic may have been established in 1792 but they had no real governing ability or governing body until Robespierre and the Montagnards took control by about 1793. After Robespierre’s fall, the National Convention ruled only to 1795. The next governing committee was made up of five members and was named “The Directory.” A French plebiscite ratified the new constitution they proposed and approved. It created a Directoire (English: Directory) that had a bicameral legislation, thus marking another major shift in the First Republic’s legislative ability. The Directory framed their new legislative body as if they supported the peasants but they were largely represented by nobility and in fact, all five members were of noble backgrounds. After the fall of the Jacobins, it became clear that the offshoots of the Girondists, merged into the new Directory assemblies and clearly advocated against the lower classes. It was more or less a continuation of the “White Terror” which were counter-revolutionary, retaliatory assaults and waves of violence against Montagnards and anyone who supported Robespierre. It was clearly a partisan purge from the outset but it did end up resulting in Robespierre’s death and the destruction of the Jacobins, so it actually worked. The disregard of the lower classes remained a common theme through the years of 1794-1797 as multiple cold winters, the revolutionary wars against nation-states like Belgium and low crop yields created food shortages, wood shortages (for heating homes) and women’s marches that resulted in thousands of deaths. It was a time of great turmoil and one that reinstated class warfare just with a different face (The Directory) and done through different mechanisms (new bicameral legislative body and a governing committee of noblemen with inegalitarian taxing practices.) The Directory’s mistreatment of the lower classes is clear because although they were committed to promoting Republicanism, they fundamentally distrusted and opposed democracy at every turn. Historians seem to agree as they say the Directory showed self-interest instead of promoting virtue and “fraternite.” It never had a strong base of support (because it was made up of nobles and run by just five of them in particular) and most of its candidates lost the elections that were seldom held during those four years. In fact, parliamentary elections in 1797, resulted in considerable gains for the royalists. Many of these were sons and other family members of the Bourbon dynasty, which remained powerful and held about 6% of the land by 1797. One can see these gains made in the year 1797 as a re-consolidation and a firming of the grip on power. While an old monarchy fell, the nobility and the merchant (business) class gathered itself and re-emerged from the ashes of the true revolutionary fervor that gripped France from 1789-1794. Some historians even see the Revolution divided into two distinct time periods. The first being led by the Jacobins and pushing for left-wing ideals and policies within a true democratic and often tumultuous framework. This clearly covers the time from the Estates-General convening in May 1789 to the death of Robespierre and the subsequent fall of the Jacobin Club by November 1794. The second distinct time period covers the establishment of The Directory in 1795 to the end of the Revolution and the massive gains of royalists from 1797 to 1799. So it became clear to many who analyze the revolution that without a true socialist-style transformation of the means of production in France (mainly capital from farming and mercantilism), the capitalist/business owning class can regather itself and establish a new network of capital to horde and thus immiserate the lower classes even more; sending them back into a more gilded version of feudalism. France was still waging wars throughout this time. Egypt, Rome, Great Britain, Russia and Belgium were some of the empires and nation states who France had either direct conflict with or indirect economic warfare with from 1792-1802. While The Directory waged wars they continued to advocate against royalism and instead sought to consolidate behind a strong executive, most likely a general. The land-owning, capitalist class clearly believed that a strong executive could not only keep the lower classes down but could possibly conquer more lands over time. Monarchies were from the past and authoritarian, capitalist regimes would be the new order of things. Napoleon Bonaparte would represent that transformation perfectly. He wasn’t a royal, nor a commoner. He was a strong general who had just returned to France from fighting abroad in the Revolutionary Wars. The Catholic clergymen and newly chosen director (one of five), began to orchestrate another coup. This took place in November of 1799 and it replaced the five directors with now “three consuls.” Those were of course going to be Napoleon, Sieyes himself and a lesser known man named Roger Ducos. This was the signifier that marked the end of the Republican phase of the revolution and now would result in the consolidation of power behind Napoleon and what historians would later call, “an exporting of the revolution.” The natural trajectory was to finish these wars and regather lands that were lost. Napoleon would do just that as he named himself Emperor of the French in 1804 and ruled from 1804 to 1814. He launched the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) as a retaliatory campaign to regain much of the land and soft power that was lost during the previous Revolutionary Wars (1792-1802). His empire ruled over much of continental Europe until its fall in 1815 and Napoleon was arguably the west’s first imperialistic leader who sought to gain land and extract resources for the betterment of the motherland. He didn’t have much of an interest in direct rule and as a result the Empire came crashing down. The irony in this bit of history is that if the Bourbon dynasty didn’t successfully consolidate the power they did in 1797, the Bourbon Restoration (1815-1830), would never have occurred. Napoleon would have fell and there would have been a power vacuum of depleted royalist factions against left-wing, mostly lower class forces. No capitalist class could have emerged from that. The Bourbon dynasty was one of the few that maintained their land and power during the Revolution and were in a position to pick up the pieces when the Empire fell in 1815.
The French Revolution could have taken multiple different paths. As with all revolutionary time periods, the events taking place on the ground are organic and can change from year to year. The unstoppable force that the Jacobins seemed to be by 1793, were completely wiped out by November of 1794. These shifts happen constantly during a revolution and the French Revolution has taught generations of socialist, communist and left-wing forces how to put stress on a regime and either through force or popular participation, ultimately overthrow it. Many of the lessons learned from the revolution were present in the July Revolution of 1830, the Paris Commune of 1871 and the Russian Revolution of 1917. Common themes ran through these revolutions and much of it was an agitation of the peasants and the mass mobilization of the working class. The peasants in France during the revolution fought the same type of despotic monarchy that Russian peasants fought during the years of 1905-1917. One thing is for certain thought, the French Revolution is one of the most important events in human history. It triggered the global decline of absolute monarchies and replaced them with republics and liberal democracies. That’s impressive, despite the gains lost by the lower classes during the latter years of the revolution. It advanced civilization forward, put Enlightenment thinking into the mainstream and established a new world order based in capitalist, hegemonic nation states that have varying degrees of political freedoms. It made the world a better place, even if incrementally and to that we can thank men like Robespierre, Rousseau and Antoine Barnave.